Former Judge Begs For Mercy, Gets 6 Years For Paying Bribes

Weeping and remorseful, former Circuit Court Judge James Oakey begged for mercy in federal court Tuesday moments before he was sentenced to 6 years in prison for paying bribes as a defense attorney.

The subdued and contrite Oakey stood in stark contrast to the combative stance he took last April, when U.S. District Court Judge James Holderman ordered Oakey to surrender to prison authorities to begin serving an 18-month sentence for income tax fraud. At that time, Oakey accused Holderman of

``dehumanizing`` him.

At Tuesday`s hearing, Oakey told Holderman that he has learned from his imprisonment.

``I feel that I have learned. I feel that I have suffered,`` Oakey continued. ``I see that I`ve hurt those I love the most. I guess I`ve sunk as low as I can sink. I`m asking you to help me rise again.``

Holderman agreed that he was seeing a different man.

``I think you have changed. You are certainly different than when you stood before me and castigated the government, the witnesses and me,``

Holderman recalled. ``But you learned what I knew: It wasn`t the system. It was you.``

Before sentencing Oakey, Holderman listened as Chicago Bears assistant coach Jim Dooley testified how Oakey had represented him without fee when Dooley was unemployed after being fired as the Bears head coach.

Holderman heard a different side of Oakey described as Assistant U.S. Atty. Scott Mendeloff portrayed him as a lawyer who ``peddled justice in the Circuit Court of Cook County.``

Mendeloff outlined how Oakey paid court personnel at the branch court at Grand and Central Avenues to allow him to ``hustle`` in the halls to secure defendants.

``Many of these citizens were unsophisticated people who were first-time offenders,`` Mendeloff said. ``James Oakey preyed on these people in an egregious and heartless way. Mr. Oakey asked for mercy, but he showed no mercy to any of these people.``

In asking for a prison sentence of 8 years, Mendeloff also said that the government had learned that Oakey had taken money as a judge to fix cases.

But Oakey`s son, James Oakey III, an assistant public defender representing his father, argued that Holderman should not consider such accusations because his father had never been convicted of any such crimes.

Holderman said he would not consider any crimes Oakey may have committed while he sat as a judge from 1968 to 1974, when he was removed from the bench by the Illinois Courts Commission.

Holderman sentenced Oakey on racketeering charges for paying bribes as a defense attorney, including $300 a week in 1982 and 1983 to James LeFevour to forward to his cousin, Richard LeFevour, the former supervising judge of the First Municipal District, who was convicted in an earlier trial.

After sentencing Oakey, Holderman granted his request that he be sent to the federal prison in Oxford, Wis.-the same institution where Richard LeFevour is serving a 12-year sentence.

Oakey was given credit for time served on the tax charges and faces about an additional 4 years in prison if he serves his sentence without incident.